


Khamsin

by Spylace



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aliens Make Them Do It, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, But they get better, Character Death, Deus Ex Machina, Gods make them do it, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Multi, Mythology - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sex Pollen, patent pending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Cupid had to intercede on behalf of the Enterprise crew and the one time he didn’t have to.</p>
<p>Also,</p>
<p>"Did Spock just call me hot?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing adventures of Cupid!McCoy because he deserves more love. Can be seen as a continuation to my other story [Tramontane](http://archiveofourown.org/works/825851).

Cupid liked to think that he had prepared for every eventuality concerning their five-year mission. However, when a slap to the face failed to dislodge James T-is-for-Trouble Kirk from very publically humping his leg in the cafeteria, he figured something was up.

By this point, sex under the influence was par for the course for the crew of the Enterprise. As the god of erotic love, he even encouraged it in a safe, consensual manner that did not have him and his staff tied to the medical bay for days on end scrambling for a cure for the latest buffet of STIs. But even he had his limits as his best friend thrust what felt like a squirming python against his thighs, inciting everyone else to take very immediate attention.

“Bones, Bones, Boooones!” Jim moaned as though he was about to forget that silly nickname anytime soon. “You smell good.” He said, digging grooves into hips. A distant part of Cupid heartily approved. “You smell really, really good.”

Despite the pleasant pulse of electricity skittering across his skin, Cupid had some standards and pushed the blond away, glaring at Spock who had come too late to stop the spectacle of their captain, now elbows deep in ketchup and mayo.

“What. Happened.”

Maybe he could fix it. He was a doctor after all.

If not, he was a god and he would find out what happened.

Spock kept his Vulcan-cool as he replied “It seems that the Captain had an adverse reaction to one of the plants in quarantine.”

“Forgive me Mr. Spock but you and I have a very different definition of quarantine if this is the result! Dammit Jim!” Jim licked a long stripe from the nail bed to his wrists, leaving tiny bite marks along the way. And since he was holding both of Jim’s hands, he had no idea who had just climbed down his waistband though judging by the trajectory of Spock’s eyebrows, it wasn’t anything good.

Further groping propelled him into Jim who received him with an enthusiastic slobber against his lips. His thoughts were a mere micrometers from _what the fuck is this_ shit when his brain kicked in and belatedly identified the incredibly yummy smell coming off of Jim in waves.

“You’re shitting me!” He snarled as everything else faded off into the backdrop, the culprit suddenly shimmering into view. Cupid slapped the offending hands away, fighting hard not to simply throttle the ancient god.

Huehuecoyotl smiled at him genially, appearing times to be an incredibly handsome youth or a giant coyote. “I _invented_ sex pollen!”

“No” The other god countered delicately, that is to say not at all. “See the word _sex pollen_ did not come into usage until several delightful eroticists...”

“Nevermind,” Cupid interrupted, “Just undo it alright? I don’t have time for a bunch of horny teenagers.”

Huehuecoyotl had the grace to look vaguely apologetic.

“Ah well” the god cleared his throat, brushing back his feathered crown. “Therein lies the problem I’m afraid. You’ll have to oh—what’s the word? Fuck it out of them.”

“I can do that.” He said grimly as the world turned back to normal, Jim hanging like a limpet across his back. “And when I’m done, I’m coming for you old man.”

That was definitely a leer on the coyote’s face.

“I’m sure you will.”

 

Just because he was a god did not mean that he was immune to lust spells—look at Zeus, Apollo, and Hades. He was just smarter than his extended family about tripping into them. Cupid would be the first to admit that he was a brat growing up but there was something to the theme about love conquering all. Until it conquered him that is.

Jim arched his hips to meet his next downward thrust, wailing as they, in the words of the wise Huehuecoyotl— _fucked it out of their system_. “C’mon Jim.” He gritted out, his voice utterly wrecked as he pinned the blond in place. “Gotta let me take care of you.”

Their dicks rubbed together, slick and wet, like having an entire jar of lube spilled between them. He was getting dizzy, literally vibrating in his immortal skin as everyone else flowed around them like it was situation normal. At one point, he had Scotty giving him a rim job while Chapel and Uhura attempted scissoring, failed, laughed and went on to double-team Spock who would have no doubt been a favorite with his aunt Athena.

As Jim came messily into his hand, someone tapped his shoulder and he whirled around, wings snapping open automatically to shield the blond from view.

“Paging Dr. Sexy!” Huehuecoyotl called, laughing.

“Don’t call me that.” Cupid scowled as the other god looked on appreciatively.

“But how can I resist? Smart, sexy and he’s a doctor!”

Feathers were clinging to his ass, a definite downside to having wings.

“For the record, you’re still not welcome on this ship.”

“Now, we can’t have that can we?” The look on Huehuecoyotl’s face was pure predator as he stalked forward, his teeth gleaming against his earthy skin. A soft hand nudged his knees apart and Cupid held his breath, glaring down at the Aztec god of mischief.

“Need some help with that?” Huehuecoyotl asked coyly, batting his eyes.

He hissed when the bells and loincloth dropped to their feet.

“Fuck yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

He squinted at the vial in his hand. It could be the cure. In fact, he was ninety-nine percent sure but without the sophisticated equipment on the Enterprise, he had no idea of making sure that he hadn’t accidentally created the next great plague. And knowing Jim, he’d be allergic to the one thing that could save him.

Cupid hesitated. He knew the basics of immunization. Theoretically, once injected, his body should be able to replicate antigenic material no questions asked. The virus wouldn’t kill him but this was the first time he’d willingly courted an infectious disease. He wasn’t like Shitala Devi who took the worship of the sick. Disease just wasn’t sexy dammit. But he was supposed to be a doctor. He’d have to such it up and deal with it.

“Here goes nothing.” He said out loud and pressed the hypospray into his arm.

 

“That was incredibly foolish of you doctor.” Spock scolded as he came to, sitting him up on a rickety chair he’d been using prior to his fainting spell.

“It worked didn’t it?” He countered, still punch-drunk from his revival.

All members of his family had a degree of shape-shifting in their blood. In order to fit in, he’d turned himself a human for the part. He’d just forgotten to turn back. Hera was already heckling him about _going native_ ; she’d have a field day when she heard.

But the virus in itself was a nasty piece of work. Thank the stars for his divinity and as loathed as he was to admit, Apollo for teaching him the art of healing.

Spock compressed his lips together which Cupid took to mean as unimpressed on any other sentient being in tune with their emotions.

“Who will understand the medical mind? You have recklessly risked yourself knowing that I was available.”

“Reckless, hell!” He argued. “You let Jim pull these stunts all the time!”

“The Captain is a known factor and I have come to respect his decisions. However, you are...”

If that wasn’t Vulcan for _I quit forever_ , he’d swallow his arrows.

“Emotional? Illogical?” Cupid crossed his arms. “Tell it like you mean it Spock, you almost sound like you care.”

The subtle flaring of nostrils was the only response he received.

He backpedaled.

“I’m fine Commander, would I lie about this?”

“Doctor” Spock replied stoically. “You have proven on no less than seventeen point three occasions that...”

“I’m sorry I asked.” Cupid muttered. “Really though, I’m fine. I wouldn’t risk the crew for this, you know that.”

Spock relaxed, about an inch.

“Indeed. Even so, I must ask that you refrain from such endeavors in the future. You are a... valuable part of the crew.”

Cupid grinned.

“Thanks Spock. Does that mean you’ll leave this part out of the report?”

He got to his feet, grimacing at the patches of blue that were only now sloughing off his skin. He’d be having words with Erra later. Spock moved to grab his elbow which was threatening to drop back onto the table.

“Doctor, as you might say during your disagreeable moods—not a chance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the TOS episode: Miri


	3. Chapter 3

Trouble began when they beamed down on Amazonia (which Spock dutifully corrected, Pollux III) which had once been a host to an advanced civilization. The brass, being made up of wise and prospicient old people, stamped priority over salvage operations, tucked snugly between exploration and cultural preservation.

All Cupid had wanted was a chance to stretch his legs and maybe his wings while the landing party was looking the other way. But as they progressed through the dense jungle, their crew of six began to shrink one by one until only he, Jim and Spock were left.

Cupid gritted his teeth when he realized what was happening.

“Artie!” He roared as he stomped through the lush foliage. Birds, or whatever passed for birds in these parts, scattered every which way in alarm. Picking one direction, Cupid began to walk, giving Jim and Spock no option but to follow. Old magic took of his skin, inverting him to his godly form. He knew when he hit pay dirt as the illusion of endless greenery collapsed beneath his wings.

In the clearing were women of various shapes, sizes, colors and species. A gorn snapped lazily at the long fingers of a Romulan commander, a Klingon tested the sharpness of her blades against her wrists, a Cardassian argued with a Betazoid whether fantasies counted against divinely ordained celibacy. And in the middle was Artemis with their security officer sprawled across her lap, feeding her slices of figs and sweetmeats with her teeth.

Artemis was beautiful in the abstract way a vintage car was. She was all angles and sharp lines, a certain hardness to her as though she was a being smelted from iron ore yet as needy and high-maintenance as any one of his mother’s more permanent hanger-ons.

“You should know” He said dryly when Artemis snapped her head up at their entrance, hands immediately going for her bow and the bone knife at her hip. “She’s not a virgin.”

Jim choked and Spock noted that the two other members of their party, both male, had been stripped naked and strung up by their ankles.  

“Artemis” Cupid greeted evenly, crossing his arms against his suddenly bare chest. “You look well.”

“And you” Artemis started, assessing him as she might a hind mounted on her altar. “Look like a stripper.” When they got back to the ship, he’d give his errant captain a physical to see why the hell he couldn’t seem to breathe properly. Artemis tossed her hair back, the long ponytail flowing like tassels of dark cornsilk down one shoulder. “Have shame Eros, you’re standing on holy grounds.”

Behind him, Spock murmured “Fascinating”.

“Bones. What’s going on?”

Cupid ignored them.

“And you’re supposed to take virgins.”

“Right” The goddess of the hunt and the wilderness retorted, rolling her eyes. “Like those are easy to find in this side of the galaxy.”

Cupid motioned towards the towering groves of sub-tropical trees. “Well if you didn’t insist on living in the middle of nowhere...”

“You’re always telling me to adapt so I did.” She combed the girl’s hair back revealing a flushed face and limpid brown eyes. “She has made no promises and no claim towards another. She is mine. Your two men are mine.” As an afterthought she added, “Leave the captain as well.”

His wings seized in distress.

“I swear to god Artie...!”

The Amazon queen snarled “Stop calling me that!”

“Stop using your deflowered minions as an excuse to kill people!” He shot back. “Everyone knows you lost your cherry to Athena when my mom got married to Hephaestus!”

Scandalized gasps rang all around. Artemis’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“How dare you? You, Eros, are trespassing.” The goddess stretched to her full height, towering a head taller than all of them. Even the Gorn seemed diminished without losing any of her considerable bulk. “Anyone else and I would have shot you with my arrows when you disturbed my sanctuary.”

“What do you want then?” He asked impatiently.

Artemis seemed startled. “I... what?”

“What do you want” he repeated slowly, much like when he was dealing with concussed bridge members. “In recompense?”

“You must be joking.” Artemis accused, tucking the girl’s head under her chin. “You are joking aren’t you?”

“Actually I’m not.” Cupid sighed and blew the fringe of blond hair out of his face. Intergalactic Diplomacy 101 had to be worth something. “Look, I didn’t know this was your planet. I thought it was just Apollo in the next one over so my bad. How can I make this up to you?”

Artemis stared as though his reaction had been wholly unexpected.

He scowled.

It’d been at least three millennia. Everyone had to grow up sometime.

Jim made a small sound at the back of this throat.

“Wait a minute, if anyone should pay, it should be me.”

He groaned. “Dammit Jim!”

“Captain” Spock interjected disapprovingly. “It is rather unwise to offer yourself as compensation between two beings whose abilities we do not wholly comprehend.”

At least Spock was dependably underwhelmed by his divinity. Artemis stared curiously at Jim with her mirror-lit black eyes.

“Little mortal” She cooed, “Do you have any idea what it is that you’re asking. My brother Hercules completed twelve labors before the queen-goddess was satisfied. Do you think you can do better?”

Cupid stepped between them.

“Artie, I swear I will put an arrow in your throat.”

Artemis looked at him in apparent boredom.

“Go away Eros, this is between me and him now.”

“Yeah Bones” Jim echoed and cleared his throat. He flashed him a weak smile. “Just, it’s alright okay?”

Cupid put a hand on the side of his neck, pressing his thumb against his pulse.

“Dammit Jim, this isn’t some foreign princess you can woo into your bed!”

Jim quirked an eyebrow, blue eyes twinkling.

“Seriously Bones? Who says woo anymore?”

Cupid all but stomped his feet as he was pushed aside, useless against the covenant Jim had cast between him and his annoying aunt-sister-cousin. Spock made a motion to interfere but Cupid stopped him with a quick shake of his head. Deal-breaking was dangerous, especially for them. It was one of the cardinal rules they had to adhere by if they wanted to remain in the mortal plane, meddling in their painful-stunning-beautiful-awkward lives.

Leaning down to peer into Jim’s eyes, Artemis quirked her lips in an impish grin reminiscent of simpler times. Before everyone decided to throw themselves into the black and muddle up boundary lines anyway.

“I require of you, a kiss.”

“A kiss?”

“A kiss” Artemis confirmed.

“Um... aren’t you...” Jim waved a hand.

“Cute” Artemis said wryly. “I can see why Eros would like you.”

Cupid snorted at the blatant defamation of his personality.

“Besides, you don’t want his junk sloshing around in you.”

Jim looked increasingly baffled.

“I... _what_?” He looked towards Cupid who buried his face in one hand.

“Just... go on.”

Jim stepped up to his challenge with a steely look on his face.

“And you’ll let my crew go.”

“I’ll let your crew go.” Artemis answered lazily, causing the young security officer in her arms to shiver.

“And um, maybe you’ll tell me more about how my best friend happens to be a god and he never told me?”

“Jim!”

Artemis laughed, not the pretty, feminine giggle one might expect from someone endowed with the title ‘goddess’ but a full-bellied laughter that made the earth tremble and shook their knees, and made Spock’s eyebrows flatten over his eyes like a sentient being.

“Doctor, are you certain...?” The Vulcan left off which was a good an indication as any that the world might be ending and it might be today. He was going to have to lobotomize everyone involved but at least they’d be home safe and sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Artemis is supposed to be THE virgin goddess but she was also associated with childbirth and fertility so she can't be that innocent right? She was also almost married to Orion before she accidentally killed him.
> 
> Also, for those of you who are confused. Artemis is referring to the fact that Cupid used his own blood to revive Jim. So yeah, spoiler alert.


	4. Chapter 4

There was someone else running around on his ship.

Cupid didn’t know when he started thinking of Enterprise as his, his city, his temple. He never had an affinity for metalworking to the despair of one father figure, beyond the use of his arrows and the occasional handcuffs depending on who his partner was for the night.

He hadn’t thought it serious at first which should have rang more alarm bells in the first place. But honestly, he was exhausted. It had taken a lot out of him to pick the information out of everyone’s brains once they realized exactly what he was. And after the latest rotation of space clap, the crew wasn’t too enthusiastic about sex anywhere.

Cupid, or Eros as he was formally known, was a god but even he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Which was why when a shade snuck aboard the Enterprise, he nearly didn’t catch it on time.

The relationship between United Earth and the Klingon Empire was strained. Had been ever since Nero’s insurrection sowed more than temporal anomalies in their alliance. It made Romulans lose face. As a martial species who placed great value in their personal honor, Klingons were obligated to wage war. Unfortunately humans, who attempted to mediate, were just in the way.

But he could have been more careful. Just a little.

As it was, by the time he’d caught up to the sucker, it had laid waste to three science officers, one barely breathing, eluded Spock and managed to stab a security officer in the arm, digging in with all the persistence of a termite into house foundations.

“Hold it!” He barked, his voice like a thunderclap over the ensign’s screams. The young man looked up at him, baby-faced like Chekov, young and virginal just the way most of his kind liked them. The ensign’s almond-shaped eyes glittered with pain as the trespasser carved a rune or a pictograph into his triceps. “Let him go.”

Jim Kirk stood up slow and Cupid grimaced inwardly knowing that the blond would take all the deaths and injuries as his personal responsibility.

“It’s okay Jim; we’ll get you fixed up.”

“Bones” It said and Cupid flinched because that was in no way Jim Kirk he had grown to know and love. He held up his crossbow.

“What the hell are you?”

“James T. Kirk” It answered, its inflections all wrong. “Your best friend.”

“No” He corrected angrily, “my best friend is the person you’re wearing. What the hell are you?”

He caught the ensign’s eye and motioned towards the door. The ensign shuffled uneasily backwards on hands and knees but Jim, the thing riding Jim, no longer paid him any attention.

“The god of love, am I correct?”

He didn’t know how the thing knew that considering the way he had scoured Jim’s memories for any trace of Pollux III which had conveniently disappeared from view around the same time all of the landing party beamed up missing time and memories.

“Lust”

“Kinky”

Cupid smiled grimly. “Very”

“You know what I find interesting Eros?” It asked, stepping closer until the bladed tip of his arrow grazed Jim’s neck, beading ruby droplets across the metal.

“And what’s that?”

“You haven’t _changed_.”

He dropped his crossbow the same time the stowaway stuck a knife in his ribs. Poison rippled through his body like a gut-punch, sucking all the air out from his lungs. Jim laughed tossing his head back, throat bloodied even as he closed his hands together on the side of the blond’s face.

He didn’t recognize it, why would he? Across different pantheons, their offspring ranged far and wide as the Milky Way. Some lived, others died, few became heroes yet many died in obscurity. Only god could kill a god and there was red beneath his heart, soaking his blue shirt into an ugly, ugly brown.

The knife ripped out of him with a wet squelch but he held on.

“My ship” He gritted out, “now off.”

Immediately, Jim’s eyes snapped into focus like zoom on a camera.

“ _Bones?_ ”

He became lightheaded.

“Oh thank _stars_.”

His legs failed him and he toppled forward, Jim barely catching him in time for them both to fall on the floor. From his vantage point, he saw that the ensign had alerted security and a team of redshirts were filing in one at a time, their phasers set to stun, trained on the hunched form of their captain.

Cupid yelped when Jim tried to staunch the flow of blood.

“Easy!” He snapped. “I’m a doctor, not a steak!”

Jim laughed shakily.

“You’re bleeding Bones.”

“No shit” He grumbled. “You’re the one who stabbed me.”

Jim looked ridiculously guilty at the reminder.

“’s okay Jim.” he slurred, patting him on the shoulders even as he was lifted into a gurney. “Got rid of him for ya.”

“But how did you _know_?”

White, white, the endless white of the Enterprise was hurting his eyes.

The redshirts took Jim into custody, apparently unable to take his word for it.

Cupid sighed.

“Wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the TOS episode "Day of the Dove"


	5. Chapter 5

On the bridge, the crew was relaxed, Jim and Sulu trading good-natured barbs back and forth as they charted stars across the viewscreen. Jim had wanted to show him WASP-12b, a planet made of solid diamond. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t have seen on his private display down in the sickbay but he appreciated the blond’s offer all the same. WASP-12b was a thing of beauty.

The Enterprise had come around just as the former white dwarf eclipsed a nearby star. The resulting corona looked as though someone had stuck a candle inside a giant crystal ball throwing off lights that even held Spock’s attention from the star map for a full thirty seconds.

“What are the chances someone wants that rock for a ring?”

Spock cleared his throat. “Although the crystal formations on WASP-12b are indeed identical to the tetrahedral carbon structures found in diamonds, most of it is industrial use only and unsuitable as means to declare your intention for spousal union.” 

Cupid rolled his eyes.

“And they say that romance is dead.”

“On the contrary doctor. As ‘romance’ is neither a sentient or a living being, it cannot die.”

“Stop being so damned literal you pointy-eared hobgoblin!”

He clicked his teeth shut when the ship shook ominously, gripping the back of the captain’s chair as though the ground might fall out from beneath him at any second. Alarms began, tinny at first, then louder and louder as the engines died and the shields failed, gravity falling as they were plunged into darkness and what seemed like the underwater reenactment of the Battle of Lepanto. He could barely hear anything over the din of the alarms.

Jim punched his console.

“Mr. Scott, what’s going on?!”

There was no answer, only static over the speakers. They could only hope that the transmitter had failed along with everything else and not the alternative because even he couldn’t imagine what it would mean if the scrappy engineer was dead.

From behind the chair, Cupid squeezed his eyes shut and breathed “ _No_ ”.

 

In the crater where the warp drive had once been, a familiar godling stood, dazed and confused, his rainbow cape shredded until all the colors ran together into an eye-searing iridescence. Pothos’ moon-dark eyes lit with something like pain and fear as he took it all in, the dead engineers a mighty legion at their feet.

“Why did you... what, why Pothos?”

Cupid tried in vain to find the words but couldn’t. Nothing could compare. He didn’t know engines but he recognized Scotty as the pile of burnt flesh strewn in the corner, his bones still crackling with fire.

“I...” Pothos stammered. “I didn’t mean to. _I didn’t know_ —”

Cupid swallowed back a hysteric hiccup.

“Stars Pothos” He groaned in disbelief. “You could have gotten your fool ass killed. Shit...!”

Lights were flashing a lurid red; the color of his father’s standard as he rode out to his armies. But they couldn’t hear the shrill warnings because they were already exposed to the vacuum of space. And in space, no one could hear you scream.

He had wondered why there was no one coming in to save the day casting a last-minute miracle that only the crew of the Enterprise and those who were truly blessed by the gods could. His chosen, some handpicked and others not, all one thousand and seventeen would die if he stood around and did nothing.

He stretched his wings and flew up, grabbing the part of the tear that was already too cold to touch. “Come on you blasted piece of tin.” He swore. “You and me, we’ve had our differences in the past but you’ve always pulled through for us. Don’t give up now!”

Radiation rippled through him and it hurt. He wouldn’t pretend it didn’t. But he held his hand up to the gaping hole where he could see the canvas of stars trailing behind them and the giant globe of diamond he’d been admiring. “ _Don’t take him away a second time_.”

He plugged the hole shut.

All of his breath left him when he realized that it was cold, far too cold for human habitation, the air too thin to breathe in. The emergency generators were long dead and in the time it had taken for him to crudely put a band aid over Enterprise’s hurts, no one had noticed the winged figure in the engine room.

Not even his family.

Pothos wrapped a pale shroud around himself, his dark locks drawing his eyes like a pale stain across newly-washed sheets. He hadn’t realized the naked truth of his words when he and Jim first met in the physical realm, two drunkards determined to change their lives.

Cupid walked town the silent halls. He took his time for he had forever. He would always have forever. In trying to preserve the lives of everyone on board, he had merely prolonged their deaths. From the bloated corpses that bumped comically against the walls and the ceiling, the pain must have been excruciating.

He sat officers upright and closed their bulging eyes. The dogpile of medical staff in quarantine, the safest place to be until the backup generator died, he laid out in neat rows. Chapel’s pale yellow hair, he brushed back. He kissed M’Benga’s wrists and smoothed out an orderly’s uniform.

Pothos watched the procession with hollowed eyes, his willowy body half hidden behind the shelves of inventory that had yet to be sorted.

“I’m sorry Eros! I didn’t—!”

“I know”

The personification of desire and longing flinched back as though struck.

Cupid moved on.

 

On the bridge, everything was quiet—the preternatural stillness of an abandoned ship. Never had the Enterprise been so quiet, not even while she was bare bones and steel in the backwaters of Iowa awaiting her maiden voyage. Not when she’d been cut down so badly by Khan’s attack they had to rebuild her from the ground up. A console flashed worryingly, unattended by the crew it failed to protect.

 _We both failed_ —he thought bitterly.

Through the pall of silence and the floating bodies, Cupid found Jim and pulled him close.

Knowing that it was too late, he breathed for him.

 

He was still holding Jim when Iris came, summoned by a frantic Pothos.

The personification of rainbows took one sparse glance around the ship before resting her eyes on him, like a needle forever pointing north. She took care to avoid the bodies of the bridge crew as she knelt down right next to him, her radiance lighting the entire chamber.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I swallowed a warp core.” He snarled, tear tracks down his jaw. “What do you think?”

“It is regrettable.” She conceded. “But they were mortals. It was their time.”

“That is bullshit and you know it Iris.”

Iris sighed. “Eros...”

“No” he swallowed, shaking his head. “ _No_ ” Cupid stood abruptly, nearly smacking the other Olympian in the face. He sat Jim down in his chair, strapping the belt on for him. Quietly he said “I need you to send me to hell.”

Iris looked as though someone had taken a two-by-four to the side of her head.

“You need me to what?”

“Take me to Hell Iris.”

Pothos let out a small whimper which went ignored. Cupid thought that he had taught the kid to know better. He had no idea why Pothos of all people, the god of desire and his mother’s principal attendant now that the goddess of love and beauty had expelled them from the nest saying “You’re cramping my style kids” was here. Unless the idiot mistranslated bling for blind lust.

He ground the heel of his palm against one eye.

“Eros” Iris said patiently, folding her graceful arms across her chest. “Do you know who goes to Hell?”

“Yeah, grieving widows.”

“Dead people!”

“Because Uncle Hades looks real dead right now.” He quipped dryly.

“Do you remember the saying; all roads to hell are paved with good intentions?”

Cupid snorted. “Believe me, there’s nothing even remotely good about what I’m doing. I’m just being that selfish, greedy kid you had to chase out of your apiary.”

Iris let out a frustrated noise.

“I take it back. This is not worth you not sulking for the next five hundred years.”

“Fine” Cupid said, “There’s more than one way into hell.”

The messenger goddess shook her head.

“This is not about my willingness to take you to hell Eros, these are facts. You do not understand. You are love, you are life. You will destroy hell or it will destroy you.”

“You’re right.” He snapped. “That’s not something I can understand.”

“Eros...” Iris pleaded.

“Iris, what was Pothos doing here?”

The goddess said nothing.

“I thought so.”

Cupid took a phaser from a passing security officer, kicking it up to ‘kill’ and shoving it under his breast, the exact spot the demi had gotten him before being booted off the ship.

He added gently, “After all, I’m just an old country doctor.”

 

Surprisingly, the world below hadn’t changed much since the Bronze Age. People of all races stood in line, coins, jewelry or a pretty bauble in hand, waiting for their turn to cross the great rivers that would deliver them from the tedium of limbo.

Cupid, being what he was, skipped to the front of the line with a flick of one wing, indignant jeers from Orion pirates close at his heels.

Anubis barely batted an eye from his weighing, his expression inscrutable behind his jackal mask. A nut-brown hand plucked the dripping heart from the scale and tossed it into a basket already overflowing from the day’s pickings. With a tearful wail, the unworthy soul was dragged away by two oni who would toss him into whichever room that was available be it the Dharmic Naraka or Ta’xet’s torture chambers.

“Yo Anubis, howzit?”

“Cupid, my dear fellow.” Anubis greeted, his initial joy fading as fast as it had come. “You look terrible. Has something happened?”

“I need a favor buddy.” He said ruefully, looking around. The place hadn’t blown up yet so he figured he was still in the green. “One ticket to hell?”

The Egyptian god of the underworld stared at him aghast.

“You’re joking!”

At his baffled look, Anubis explained “Cupid, you’re not _dead_.”

He rubbed at the pale fold of scar beneath his heart.

“Sure felt like it.” He grumbled. “I’m here anyway, aren’t I?”

“Which shouldn’t have happened in the first place.” The jackal god scolded. “Who let you in? I bet it was Peter. Two thousand years and the little fool thinks he knows all there is to know about bookkeeping.” He spat.

“Hey now,” Cupid soothed. “It’s not like we’ve worked together for the past hundred years or so or anything.”

“Has it really been that long?” Anubis asked wistfully. “But in all seriousness my friend, what are you doing here?”

He sniffed the air, his black mask wrinkling into an incredible likeliness of a real face.

“Dead followers.” Cupid answered noncommittally, shoving his hands down in his pockets and hunching his back like it was 1001 B.C. “Promised them eternal life, happiness, the works but they died.”

“Hm” Anubis murmured thoughtfully, weighing a grey, seven-chambered heart against spotted feather. “They still fall for that then?”

“Gets them every time.”

“You’ll need to fill out some paperwork.” Anubis declared which Cupid mentally translated as _metric tons_. “And maybe, mind you, maybe we can get you a temporary pass. But” He eyed him warily as though an ex-god of eroticism was about to turn into the Namean lion and bite him in two. “I mean temporary Cupid. You’ll be able to say your good byes but that is all I can do.”

Cupid nodded understandingly and the jackal god’s ears seemed to lift in relief.

“Great, say. Have you seen a bunch of Starfleet officers pass through by chance? Federation folk, redshirts, blueshirts, a couple of yellows, maybe some burnt beyond recognition?”

“Hm, I believe I saw Charon ferry them across the river earlier. They were completely clueless the poor things. What are you teaching them up there?” Anubis tossed the massive heart back to the Frencian and waved it away. But by the time he turned around, Cupid was gone.

 

When he was young, Cupid never thought about hell. Sure, he did set Hades aflame with passion for Persephone and maybe a few of his arrows were involved in self-destructive couples like Romeo and Juliet but beyond that, his concept of death had always been limited.

It was a realm for his fathers to contemplate. As Iris had so kindly reminded him, where there was no life, there was no love, no lust. The borderlands of Tartarus had always seemed too bleak for him to endure even when he had been down here last, the river Lethe washing away even the most powerful of his spells.

But Charon was a good sort from what he remembered from Hermes’ tales. Took cash and never asked a single question even if his stance on the gold standard was a little outdated. He had to break off several arrowheads before the ferryman was satisfied. As it turned out, that was the easy part.

In the age of tolerance, different pantheons overlapped one another which was why he was dealing with not Hades, his uncle, but Izanami, Inazagi’s crazy bitch of a wife.

The Shinto goddess of death leaned against a wall, her hair like a black veil down her ruined face. She wore a kimono, pearly white hemmed with laminated flames and bleached bones. Her belly peeked out from the middle, heavy and ponderous as though she was about to drop any second.

“You’re alive.” She accused shrilly. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Let me through Izanami.” He replied. “I need to talk to my uncle.”

“Is it that time again then?” She asked, her eyes like empty holes bored through her skull. “One of these days the price will be too high for you to pay then what will you do?”

“You tell me.” He grinned, bearing his teeth. “You seem to have it all figured out.”

An overbearing mother as well as a fierce grandmother, numerous aunts, sisters, cousins, a daughter, and a wife had taught him to respect women. Yet there was something about Izanami that not even Kobayende, the god of disease, failed to elicit, like bathing in something oily like rotted fat.

“We of death owe you nothing child.”

“Stop calling me a kid.” He said politely, tried to. “Now let me pass.”

Izanami blinked.

“ _No_ ”

The earth trembled as though the Cyclopes and the hekatonkheires, long forgotten within the bowels of Tartarus, were just beginning to wake. Izanami looked up at him wonderingly, her stomach bulging with many fists and tiny toes as her offspring struggled to get out.

She narrowed her eyes. “I thought I recognized you. I know you. You are...”

“With me.”

Thanatos appeared in a sweep of blood-red feathers. Cupid had never been so glad to see the winged god in his life. He looked up somewhat shamefaced at the other god who asked, “Who or what is _Bones_?”

 

“So where is Hades?”

“He had other duties to tend to, namely, a death in the family.”

“No way.” Cupid said with no small amount of shock. “Who?”

He knew all the immortals in their family, even the ones who’d cast off their names to join the other pantheons.

“He wouldn’t say.”

“An offspring?” Cupid guessed as he touched down on the ground, his leather boots making impressions in the powdered ash, the impoverished soil warming briefly to his touch. He shrank back as Tartarus groaned once more, a massive fissure starting from his heels.

Thanatos twitched.

“Do not touch anything.” The older god ordered.

“Uhh... right.” Cupid obliged, floating an inch above the crazed floor.

He never noticed the tiny flower that bloomed from his footprint.

Thanatos led him to an amphitheater where all manners of gods and goddesses sat, all reigning over different parts of afterlife. Hel and her strange, pied shape, Osiris and his corpse-green skin, Batara Kala and his feathered crown, Morrigan whose dress barely covered her truly magnificent tits.

Persephone rose graciously from her seat and Cupid felt a momentary pang of regret at banishing the once vibrant daughter of spring to the deepest recess of the earth. Gaunab peered at him from her elbow; his coal-black eyes clouding as though unable to believe that he had the audacity to interrupt their meeting.

Whispers began, filling the hollowed out cavern more effectively than had they simply shouted and yelled.

“What is he doing here?”

“Is he a god? A mortal?”

“Not ours, none would dare...”

“Pretty little thing isn’t he?”

A taunting cackle.

“ _He trespasses_.”

“Enough” Persephone said calmly, cutting through the chatter. “State your business here Eros.”

Thanatos left his side with a single flap of his wings. Strangely, warmth returned to his skin, his fingers no longer numb.

“I’m petitioning for the return of my crew. Starship U.S.S. Enterprise, they were processed an hour ago.”

“Yes” Barastyr confirmed in his heavy accent. “The ship with no engines, all suffocated. But there is no reason to return them. Ships sink, fall apart, blow up.” He shrugged, like Atlas when taking the weight of the world off of his shoulders. “Boom”

Cupid bristled.

“There is when it is an act of _god_.”

“Ridiculous”

“ _Outlandish_ ”

“Tell me about it.” He growled.

“Have you any proof?”

“Cupid” Persephone told him sternly. “This is not the first time you have intervened on behalf of these mortals. Is it possible that you are overreacting?”

“Precisely” Mictlantecuhtli rasped, the feathers in his headdress trembling with his each breath. “This is not the first time the boy has attempted mischief and it shan’t be the last.”

“I’m not that kid anymore.” Cupid replied darkly. “How was I supposed to know that Pothos was trying to make a better rainbow? I’m a doctor, not a physicist.”

“Threatening Apollo with performances issues was supposed to be a sign of maturity?” Angelos asked, raising a perfectly penciled eyebrow. “And I thought I was a horrible teenager.”

Mara, perhaps sensing the escalating tensions, pointed out, “Darling, you’re not being very fair.”

Cupid gritted his teeth.

“I can’t fix starships, I can’t cure black holes and I certainly can’t cure the idiocy of the nitwit who decided to teleport inside my warp drive.”

“But you think you can cure death?” Morrigan asked loftily, the features of her face ever-changing between three sisters.

“How will you take them?” Iku interjected, scratching lazily at the back of his neck. “Your ship is eh... broken.”

“I’ll tow them to the nearest starbase myself if I have to.” Cupid answered determinedly.

Angelos looked downright displeased.

“He claimed them.” Morrigan sighed, her voice echoing three different aspects of herself. “He has priority.”

“He’s a little mouth-breather and has no business being here.” Boomed Erlik, a wizened old man.

“Neither did you” Ogbunabali said in amusement, “Before you were tossed down here I might add.”

Erlik growled.

“Like seriously” Angelos rolled her eyes “why does everyone dump their shit on us?”

“Maybe they thought it might be an improvement.” Cupid bit sourly. “Sorry Aunt Persephone.”

The goddess of the underworld sighed. “You can’t keep doing this Eros. Prevent them from dying if you wish but you cannot come down here to retrieve the dead.”

“Did Iris bring them down here?”

Persephone stilled. Everyone else fell quiet along with her.

She summoned Thanatos to her side. After a whispered debate, the winged god of death flew down unconcerned, handing him a scroll with hundreds of names and ID numbers jotted down. Cupid scowled as he scoured the parchment. “Ever thought about going green?”

Several faces in the crowd looked simply baffled.

Thanatos shrugged. “Nine hundred and eighty-four members, safe and accounted for.”

“Just like that.” Whiro grumbled. “Nine hundred and eighty-four, measured and judged.”

“Nine hundred and eighty-four” He repeated. “Wow, that, that seems a little low.”

Persephone grimaced as she glided down the stairs. “Ah yes, Milu didn’t realize that they were one of yours. He offered them refreshments and well... you know how that goes.”

Cupid ducked his head.

“So, what do I owe you?” he asked sheepishly as death gods of all pantheons converged around him, like a pack of wolves circling a broke-legged horse. He shivered when tendrils of cold air grabbed his ankles.

Up close, Persephone was a glacial beauty, her fair hair loose in a forbidding cascade down her back. Her blue eyes, set against her oval face like twin gems barely blinked as she cupped his face, her fingers cool like white marble against his heated skin.

For a moment, they breathed into each other’s air, from one god to another, each reigning over the different aspects assigned to them. Persephone had played with him as a girl, the very queen amongst all girls. He had been sad to see her go after each autumn, knowing that it was his arrows that had sowed loneliness in Hades’s heart.

He ruined her life. Likely, he ruined his own as well.

He would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant getting his crew back.

Persephone told him gently, “Let me worry about that.”

 

“Bones? Bones! What’s going on? Where were you? And what’s with your hair?

Only the giant, moth-eaten wings, his general state of undress and the fact that he had gotten a bleach job stopped Jim from throwing himself at his wayward CMO. His hands clamped onto the sides of his face, checking him this way and that for any other changes that might have occurred.

“Jim, Jim, it’s okay. I’m gonna get you guys out of here.”

To his relief, he saw that most of his crew remained intact, their hurts and injuries erased from their journey across the Archeron.

“Out?” Jim asked incredulously. “Bones, we’re dead.”

Cupid turned his attention back to his captain.

“Thanks Pollyanna, I’m working on that.”

“Fascinating” said the semi-transparent apparition of Spock. “It seems that the doctor has been concealing his true identity from us.”

In the background, he could clearly hear Chekov argue with Madeline that he was the incarnation of the Slavic firebird, the symbol of hopes and dreams, while the science officer vehemently argued that he was something that should never be attempted with the human tongue. Apparently, the god of spring and new beginnings.

Cupid rolled his eyes.

Some things never changed.

“Oh I’m a doctor alright.” He assured them as he cut their chains. “Had to work with Apollo and everything. My daddy had conniptions, he did.”

Spock cocked his head.

“Although the Greek Pantheon was among the most fruitful, only a select few possessed wings and were ordinarily associated with Hades. Judging by your relative youth and vitality, am I correct in assuming that you are in fact Eros of the Greek mythology?”

Cupid did a double-take.

“Did Spock just call me hot?”

“Own it” Jim said emphatically, hugging him as soon as he was free.

The crew laughed and gathered around, patting him on the back and shoulders, Uhura pressing a modest kiss to his cheeks. She winked and returned to Spock who remained slightly green, though that could have been the natural lighting.

“Alright people” he hollered, raising his voice. Everyone stood at attention, his best doctor’s voice no less effective now that they were in literal hell. “We need to get going before the folks down here decide to change their minds.” He added hastily, “and don’t forget to have a drink. Preferably from the river on the left. We have a long way to go.”

 

“So you’re the god of love.”

“Lust dammit” He sighed. “My mother’s the one in charge of love.”

“I thought Cupid was the kid in diapers.” Jim commented, wiping the sweat from his eyes.

“Well I always said folks were dumb.”

“But you came back for us Bones.” The blond laughed, his eyes crinkling into a fond smile. “So what does that make you?”

Cupid shoved at his shoulders.

A companionable moment passed and Jim asked “I won’t remember this will I?”

“Hm? No, sorry Jim.”

“This has happened before.”

“What? You dying? Remember Khan?”

Jim shot him a speculative glance but refused to take the bait.

“No, you, me, all of this, you’ve explained it before?”

“Remember Amazonia?”

“The what?”

“Exactly”

When the silence got to be too much for him, the crew, led by Spock and increasingly flirty Angelos, far ahead of them, Cupid draped a mangled wing over his head, half his primaries missing and the rest in splinters. “It’s no good Jim. We’re allowed to interfere up to a point but _stars_ , even Dionysus knows what might happen if people ever figured out what we are.”

Jim stared at him solemnly.

“Are you god?”

He shook his head. They were nearing the hellmouth, the wash of bright light like dawn across the horizon.

“Think guardian angels. Or maybe divine babysitters. That’s what the Q call us.”

Jim hugged him, clutching handfuls of his battered feathers.

“Thanks Bones, you have no idea...”

“I do kid, I do.” He answered, hugging back. “And even if you forget, remember this. _I’m not going anywhere._ ”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out to be way longer than I thought it would--enjoy!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap!

So apparently, he was a liar.

He scowled at the results of his latest blood work and leaned back, pouring himself a glass of Romulan Ale he’d been saving for a special occasion.

It’s special alright—he thought, what could be more special than having your impending doom staring right in your face?

Cupid knocked the glass back in one go, feeling the liquor ooze into his stomach like mortar across a layer of bricks. He didn’t know what to do. Did he ignore it? Pretend that nothing was wrong? Sooner or later, the monthly physicals were going to end up across someone’s desk and he’d rather that Jim (and maybe the green-blooded hobgoblin too) heard it from him.

Barring Khan’s wonderblood, miracles weren’t going to be an option this time around.

He entered a copy of his last physical into the report and fudged the data a little. No one would notice unless they gave the numbers a closer look. Anyway, he kept himself in excellent shape. Divine prerogative and all, he wasn’t the one who constantly threw himself in the path of danger, or chose the most inhospitable of planets to beam down upon.

He looked at his fingers, wiry and strong. In time, they would swell with blood much like one of Jim’s more spectacular reactions. He’d never _died_ before. Not in any body he’s ever inhabited. It would be a learning experience.

 

It was only a matter of someone found out. He was sorry that it was Hermes with a frazzled looking Apollo in tow, his throat looking like he’d been necking with a Gorn.

“What is this I hear about you storming hell?” He raked his steely-eyed gaze up and down Cupid’s slouched form. “And why haven’t you turned back already? You’re sick.”

“Hi dad, nice to see you too. How’s mom?”

“She’s on a warpath. Thing is, no one wants to stop her either. It’s like the Trojan War all over again.”

Hermes leaned against his staff, his winged sandals tucking his knees to his chest. As one of the youngest Olympians, the god of commerce, transition and boundaries reminded him of a kid in many ways, a kid who’d grown up too fast, too soon and saddled with a son who could never be what he deserved.  

But for the moment all his attention was directed at him with the single-minded focus of Zeus chasing a nymph. He laid a cool hand against his forehead, like he was still a chubby kid shooting arrows into people’s backs, clucking his tongue at the effusive warmth.

Apollo tossed his back his gold mane, his pectorals flexing impressively in the artificial sunlight of his office. He frowned, his eternally youthful face marred with unhappiness. Cupid figured that there puppies and kittens being trampled somewhere.

“I can’t fix this.”

Cupid rolled his eyes.

“Well I always knew you were a hack.”

“Can’t fix what?” Hermes hissed, tugging on Apollo’s blond curls.

“Stop that, you’re a grown man!”

Cupid took pity on both.

“It’s xenopolycythemia,” he said gruffly. “Terminal, fatal for humans. This body’s got maybe six months, tops.”

Hermes threw his arms up. “So why aren’t you doing anything about it?”

“Because it’s got no cure dammit, I can’t just magically wish this away!”

“You have before.” Apollo pointed out, the bastard. “Getting a little too close to humans again aren’t you Eros? I’m starting to think you were dropped on your head as a kid.”

Hermes pulled on Apollo’s hair again. “—Like you haven’t fucked humans.”

The sun god pulled his precious blond tresses free and winced at the strands of hair caught around Hermes’ fingers. “So why haven’t you wiped them already? Why am I still here? Ow, he’s not even sick you _brat_.”

Cupid sank into his chair, a migraine starting up in his left temple. He had no idea it took this much to sneak onto a starship, fake humanity for a couple of years and move on as he had always done since the death of his wife. He floated over three glasses, filling it with nectar.

“Because maybe you’re right.” He admitted, the drink like liquid sunbeams on his tongue. He held up his hand, preventing whatever combination of words that was about to fall out of Apollo’s smug mouth. “Maybe I have gotten too close. Maybe it’s time to move on.”

“And you automatically choose the most painful way to go?” Apollo said huffily, death and disease was a part of his dominion after all.   

“No” He pinned the blond Olympian with a glare, “The most painful way would have been slow death by radiation poisoning since we no longer have access to an augmented human blood bag—” Apollo looked away, chagrined. “Or the Tarellian plague which I can’t get since it only occurs in Tarellians.”  

“Touché”

Cupid bared his teeth. “Yeah, it’s like that.”

“Cupid, are you... sure?”

Hermes looked nervous but then with a partner like Aphrodite, he had the right to be. Since it was probably the Olympian who would come for him in death and not Iris after the whole fiasco in hell, Cupid figured he was owed an answer.

“I...”

 

As part of a crew on a five-year mission deep in space, Cupid, like everyone else, had a will. His meager possessions notwithstanding, he left everything to Jim, his brother, best friend and sometimes lover. He wrote and rewrote it until he got the words just perfect, detailing the duties of the lucky person who would land the duties of a CMO on a starship filled with children.

Unfortunately, it was this attention to detail which had Jim Kirk banging on his doors during the ass-end of the beta shift, demanding to know why his CMO had logged no less than fifty drafts of the same will in the past seventy-two hours. _Son of a bitch_ —and it all came out.

“ _Jim, there is no cure._ ”

Sickness did strange things to him. His kind did not get ill, they feasted, they loved, became mad, angry, pregnant, a man, a woman, a fish but could not get sick. High blood pressure was weird like he had one sip too many nectar at supper and couldn’t settle. He tired quickly to the point even Spock looked alarmed at the abrupt conclusions to their famous arguments. And through it all, no one gave up trying to save him.

He was handed health tonics, homemade remedies by the hour, all applied, consumed or otherwise discreetly discarded under the watchful eye of James Tiberius Kirk and the medical staff who refuses to think about a universe without their irascible CMO to reel him in.

“Real kind of you to say so.” He snipped at Chapel who waved her hand at him, watching him bolt down Chekov’s Russian concoctions.

But it was clear that he was worsening. The Fabrini cure, offered by Spock the elder, failed to eradicate the poison in his bloodstream, his being a variation on the one Leonard McCoy suffered on the other side of the veil. Cupid wondered if he too had felt fear. Despite his resolve to see his mission through, give his friends closure, he wanted to run back to his mother’s arms, send a shower of arrows Apollo’s way.

“You’re not supposed to get sick. You’re a doctor dammit!”

Jim heard him read out loud his blood count with white-trimmed lips, arms crossed and hunched over like an animal cornered.

“And gods can’t die.”

Frustrated at the lack of his cooperation, Jim threw a punch at a cabinet, barely denting the plastic mesh. Spock raised an eyebrow at his display.

“We’re trying to save you Bones.” Said Jim, aggrieved.

“Jim” Cupid pleaded, trying to reason with his sun-bright captain. “If a futuristic Vulcan with an eidetic memory can’t help me, then what makes you think I can?”

“Because it’s _you_.”

Cupid found himself shoved hard against Jim’s chest, his pulse thickening and loud inside his ears. Jim wrapped his arms around his skull “Jim I can’t breathe” and refused to let go when pushed, tucking his chin on top of his head.

“You saved my life. You never gave up, not even when I was dead. So why can’t you do the same for yourself?”

Cura te ipsum—but it wasn’t the same. Jim was special. He was just there. His kind was no better than psychic vampires, taking their strength from empathy, joy, happiness, strife, conflict, hope, lust and violence. He’d followed Jim because the boy had shone so bright and knew that the man would become something great. But Jim also had faith; he had faith in Leonard McCoy. “One more time, please Bones?”

“Okay” he let out, voice a bare whisper as he let Spock’s words wash over him. “okay”.

 

“Desist doctor, you cannot list your own mortality as a factor in this argument.”

“Oh so you _do_ admit that we’re arguing you point-eared...”

In the background, Jim laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whee! That's one WIP I've crossed off my list.


End file.
